consumer culture is out of hand

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, an 18 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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btw, feel free to reply with topic ideas you want me to write about for future posts.

onto today’s topic: consumer culture is out of hand 🛍️ 

i’m sure you’ve seen the tiktoks ranting about the new wave of 10 year old sephora kids. if you haven’t, enlighten yourself here. a trend i’ve noticed with the newer gen alpha is the entitlement enabled by our consumerist culture.

unboxing videos with hundreds of skincare products, dozens of useless home gadgets from amazon, and daily thrift hauls are being fed to viewing audiences as the norm, and this in turn creates a sense of entitlement around materialism. 📦️ 

the products we use have such short life cycles, not because they become unusable, but because something new or slightly different comes out within months to replace it. we no longer use our things or take care of them to their maximum capabilities, because the media has fooled us all into succumbing to consumerism and hitting “order now” on amazon to receive that instant gratification of a package delivered to your doorstep the next day. 🚪 

for gen alpha, there isn’t even any guilt associated with perpetual spending anymore, because it has become so normalized everywhere around them. it’s why 10 year old kids can casually demand their parents drop $100+ on drunk elephant skincare. 🧴 there is no sense of money, and this is extremely detrimental for the future of millions of children when they’ll be required to manage their own finances.

consumerism isn’t just affecting us right now, it’s snowballing into the future as well.

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